6LoWPAN fragmentation in the context of IoT based media real time communication

Abstract

Many Internet of Things (IoT) applications, like presence detection, rely on wireless sensors transmitting Real Time Communication (RTC) media that is processed at remote servers. The use of IEEE 802.15.4 physical and data‐link layers is pretty widespread as they provide enough throughput to transmit compressed media. In this context, however, the most important issue is that IEEE 802.15.4 limits the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) size to 127 bytes. The Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN) IPv6 adaptation protocol provides a mechanism that adds fragmentation capabilities to traditional IPv6 and allows the transmission of typically large media frames. Because it is not always possible to configure codec based fragmentation, alternatively relying on 6LoWPAN fragmentation can severely affect Quality of Service (QoS) when the wireless channel exhibits high packet loss. In this paper we focus on analyzing this problem including its implications and proposing possible solutions.